Tuesday, January 6, 2009
A stimulus to last for ages
By Tracy Warner Editorial Page editor
"The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince worlds: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression."

There’s at least one wall Mr. Obama should tear down
By Eugene Robinson Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — It was around 3 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1959, when Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista slipped away to the airport and fled his island nation, hauling as much loot as his aircraft could carry. Hours later, the audacious young man whose badly outnumbered guerrilla forces had defeated Batista’s army stepped onto a balcony overlooking Cespedes Park in the eastern city of Santiago. It was the first time that Fidel Castro had faced a cheering crowd as Cuba’s unquestioned leader. It would hardly be the last.

Monday, January 5, 2009
The comments
Selected reader comments from the past week posted on wenatcheeworld.com:

We treat tweens like toddlers
By Lenore Skenazy Creators Syndicate
Why do we treat our tweens like toddlers? Because the rules say we have to.

Paying to party with Paris
By Susan Estrich Creators Syndicate
When I was younger, New Year's was a time fraught with frantic uncertainty revolving around the seemingly critical questions of whether I would have a date and-or something to do. Having nothing to do on New Year's Eve and-or no one to do it with seemed a fate worse than death, or close.

Saturday, January 3, 2009
We’ll take a bailout, too
By Mark Gerzon For The Washington Post
In recent weeks, my family and I have carefully observed the bailouts that have been provided to, or requested by, various companies since the financial crisis began. After much deliberation with our accountants and financial advisers, we have concluded that, in order to prevent a deeper recession and turn around the U.S. economy, the federal government needs to give the next bailout package directly to us.

Those who mean well often don’t do good
by George F. Will Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Like pebbles tossed into ponds, important Supreme Court rulings radiate ripples of consequences. Consider a 1971 Supreme Court decision that supposedly applied but actually altered the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Friday, January 2, 2009
Our World: We adapt to the new challenges
By Rufus Woods Editor and Publisher
In recent months, The Wenatchee World has been feeling the impact of the national economic turmoil. We've made a number of changes in how we do business to try to stay profitable in a challenging time.

Health care and the costs to come
By George F. Will Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Health care, says the man most concerned with that 17 percent of America’s economy, can be "a nation-ruining issue." As Michael Leavitt ends four years as secretary of health and human services, he offers this attention-arresting arithmetic: Absent fundamental reforms, over the next two decades the average American household’s health care spending, including the portion of its taxes that pays for Medicare and Medicaid, will go from 23 percent to 41 percent of average household income.

We’ll all miss the MSM when they’re gone
By Kathleen Parker Washington Post Writers Group
Let me be the first in the new year to declare that the mainstream media are dead.

Thursday, January 1, 2009
2008's top stories, as seen by cartoonists
As they do each year, U.S. editors recently chose their top 10 stories of 2008 in a poll conducted by The Associated Press.